


Twenty Years In The Making

by JadedPandaGirl



Series: Witchy Bussiness [4]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Action/Adventure, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Dante finally grows a pair, Dante is a jealous little shit, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Kissing, Love Confessions, Romance, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18710731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadedPandaGirl/pseuds/JadedPandaGirl
Summary: It's been four months since the events of Crossfire. Dante gets hired by a coven of witches to help them with a dire problem. He brings Tess along just in case and ends up coming to some important conclusions that will affect them both.





	Twenty Years In The Making

**Author's Note:**

> I answered the demands of many a reader. Guess what, Dante's finally grown a spine and has something to tell Tess. :D

When Morrison brought this job to him, Dante could tell from a mile away that it was going to be nothing but trouble.

He had spent the better part of his career so far trying to avoid dealing directly with witches and their covens and for the most part, had succeeded. He had accepted a job or two via proxies over the years and never had any direct contact with them – that’s how both parties preferred it and Dante was more than happy with that arrangement. He had nothing against witches specifically, but it just made things less complicated. Witches were difficult and prized their secrecy… and most were wary of demons.

Plus, he’d only just gotten out of a situation involving witches that got really, _really_ complicated.

So when Morrison brought him the bluntest offer by a coven for assistance, Dante was understandably reluctant.

Sitting at his desk, Dante regarded the older man with a raised eyebrow. “So, they’re not some kinda new age wannabes. They really call themselves a coven?” he asked after the older man had finished explaining the job offer.

“That they do,” he drawled. “I didn’t care to ask too many questions. They asked for you and they’re offering to pay in cash, half up-front, half after the job’s done. All they asked for was discretion – and I know that’s not your strong point,” Morrison added, looking at him knowingly.

Dante scowled up at him from his desk. “I can do discreet. I just don’t know if I want to tangle with whatever this is.”

Morrison glanced at the overhead light. “And you got this month’s electricity bill all sorted?” he asked casually.

Dante groaned a bit, looked away momentarily and was forced to concede. “Fine, fine… what exactly do they want?”

“They want a meeting to explain their situation,” Morrison said in his dry businesslike manner. “And before you ask; yes, I insisted on choosing the location and only after you agreed. They’re waiting for my call. Say what you want, but they’re willing to jump through all the hoops.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Dante sighed and thought for a moment. “Fine. Set it up but tell ‘em that I have one condition.”

Morrison’s ears almost perked up and he regarded the mercenary with interest, thoughtfully rolling his cigar between his fingers before taking a draw. “And what would that be?”

“I’m bringing company,” Dante said. “If I’m tangling with witches I’d rather know when I’m being messed with.”

That’s how Dante found himself standing outside a dive bar, the afternoon of the next day. It was just a stone’s throw from his office that often played host to meetings with potential clients – Dante did not mind walk-ins but there were times when even he bowed to common sense and met with fishier clients in more neutral grounds. He scowled a bit at the drizzle as he waited under the bar’s aged, stained awning and only moved to hitch the guitar case hanging from his shoulder further up. He perked up when a lithe figure in a short black coat and a hood sprinted from an alley towards the bar.

“I hate these back alleys,” the woman under the hood groused as she reached him. “There’s barely enough room to swing a cat, let alone drive. Remind me again why I’m doing this?”

“Relax, Twig,” Dante said, watching her pull down her hood once under the awning. “If I’m gonna work for witches, I thought I’d have one on my corner in case they try to pull a fast one on me.”

“Well it _is_ weird they want to meet with you directly,” she said, freeing her wine-red hair from the confines of the hood and coat. “I wonder what has them so rattled that they’d reach out like this. Communicating through proxies is far more common for covens.”

Dante clicked his tongue and frowned. “I hope it’s not another potential apocalypse, we just got done with the last one three months ago.”

“ _Four_ months, but yeah, you have a point,” she agreed and he raised an eyebrow at her brief shudder – this was not borne of the chill in the air.

He sort of felt bad dragging her into this after all that. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the shorter redhead. “Hey. You’re okay meeting them, right? I know you wanted to lay low after Amaro.”

The woman shrugged. “I had to crawl out of hiding sometime,” she said. “I’m fine. Just do me a small favor and only call me Celia for the time being.”

Dante shrugged and nodded. He didn’t begrudge her the desire for caution. Four months ago both of them had caused the collapse of an ancient coven in the city of Amaro, in Italy, along with all the unsettling events that went with such an event. And witches, if nothing else, are very good at staying informed about such events. For some, a witch with such a resume might be less than welcome company.

“You got weird taste in names, Tess,” he mumbled and then smiled at her reproachful glare. “Yeah, yeah, okay _Celia_ , let’s just get it over with. Morrison’s set the meeting up, they’ll be waiting for us.”

Tess duly followed him as he entered the dive bar. They ignored the low blare of music from an aging stereo system in the back, the hubbub and chatter of a few patrons scattered about the small drinking hole and the bouquet of tobacco, stale alcohol and body odor. A pretty redhead entering such an establishment drew the attention of the lethargic patrons but one look at whom she was accompanying was enough to cause them all to think better of it and return to their drinks and conversations.

Dante paused at the bar to swap a few words with the bartender, a large, balding man who nodded and jabbed his thumb towards a door off to the side of the bar, adorned with a faded sign declaring it to be ‘Private’.  Dante nodded to Tess and she followed him through that door. The room beyond was curiously quiet, the sounds of the drinking establishment just outside muffled by clever insulation. The hunter paused for a moment to secure the door behind them with a key left on the door itself. The room was no more than a small meeting room, perhaps intended some time as a room for dubiously legal card games, judging by the pair of felt-lined tables pushed against the walls and the multiple padded chairs.

At one of those tables, two people sat slumped in dejection and in low conversation, seemingly oblivious to their entrance.

Their quiet talk ceased abruptly when they noticed the door locking and they stood up. It was a man and a woman, so similar in features that they had to be siblings. They were both tall and lean with thin faces; the woman’s was delicate with a willful chin clenched in anxiety and the man’s broader jawline was covered in dark stubble of a few days old. They both had the same sharp hazel eyes and the same chestnut dark hair and tanned complexion.

They also both looked exhausted, dark circles sagging under their eyes and their movements were skittish and neurotic, no doubt fueled by too little sleep and too much coffee.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us,” the man said, and Dante was struck at how young his voice sounded, in contrast to his appearance.

He’d estimated him to be in his forties but this man sounded more like late twenties, tired and going hoarse. The woman might be the same, around her early twenties, even though her slightly disheveled and tired look made her look older. She scrutinized them, her gaze flitting between Dante and Tess.

“Don’t thank me yet, I haven’t agreed to anything,” the hunter replied calmly. “So, what little problem can I help you folks with?”

“Our… group is under assault by a… a warlock,” the man said with a slump of the shoulders. “We’ve been hunted down like animals for the better part of the last two weeks. We’re at the end of our rope.”

“A warlock?” Tess echoed suddenly. “After a coven? What on earth did you people _do_?”

The pair regarded her with surprise momentarily and she simply stared back with a stoic, even expression.

“Oh…” said the woman. “You’re one of us. Now I see why he brought you with him,” she added, glancing at Dante momentarily.

The man looked her up and down curiously. “Are you… working as a demon hunter too? Are you part of another coven? I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?”

“I’m not,” Tess said bluntly. “And whether I’m a demon hunter or not is a moot point, I’m working with him right now,” she said, jabbing her thumb at Dante. “You can call me Celia, but you haven’t answered my question.” 

The man heaved a sigh and allowed himself to collapse back into the chair he had risen out of, defeated. “You’re right, of course. But we don’t know _why_ he’s after us, that’s the problem.”

Dante raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with Tess. He leaned against the nearest wall, folding his arms. “Alright then, why don’tcha take it from the top.”

“My name is Jeffrey and this is my sister, Ellie,” the man said. “And yeah, we’re wiccans – witches. We aren’t a formal coven but we’ve all known each other for years. My father leads the group; the only reason I’m here instead of him is because when the warlock last showed up, my father was seriously injured. We’re a small coven, just eight people, and right now four including my father are incapacitated. The other two are looking after them.”

Tess inhaled sharply. “I can’t say I’m surprised. When did this start?”

“Two weeks ago,” Ellie said. “We were gathered to discuss some plans about the future when it happened. We use our homes for gatherings and… all of a sudden the house started shaking like an earthquake was happening.”

“The demons burst out of the damn floor. We panicked,” Jeffrey added, rubbing his face with his hands. “We were able to get out of the house and stall the demons but… as soon as we set foot outside, he was waiting for us. We had to flee but one of us was injured so badly he’s still unconscious. This warlock is definitely a witch and whoever he is, he has enough skill and power to undermine our own attempts to fight him.”

“If you need evidence that there really were demons, just look at my brother’s arm—“ Ellie snapped, gesturing to a bandage peeking out of the sleeve of Jeffrey’s shirt.

“Ellie, it’s fine—“ Jeffrey blurted and tugged the sleeve down to hide the bandages. “She’s right, though. There really are demons. They’re these terrible, reptilian things. We’ve seen the kind before but they’ve always been small and never _this_ aggressive. It’s like this warlock makes them worse.”

Dante grimaced a little. “Just what do you mean when you say ‘warlock’, anyway?”

Tess scowled. “A warlock is an individual who has forged a pact of some kind with a demon or other entity. Most are small-time, selfish idiots who trade everything for a little bit of power but once in a while, you get one that really means business. Not all of them are witches, but those who are tend to be the nastiest.”

“So a warlock can just get demons to do his dirty work,” Dante groused. “Yeah, I can see why these guys are a problem.”

“Yup.”

Dante scoffed a bit, nodding, and then looked back at the witches. “And you guys don’t know why this one’s coming after you?”

“No!” Ellie groused, frustrated. “We’ve had next to no rest these past two weeks. This bastard’s been stalking us to every safe haven we have. Jeffrey and I took a risk coming to meet you. None of our group had ever _seen_ a warlock before this. We’re not exactly equipped to deal with it.”

“Are you _sure_ this has nothing to do with any of you?” Tess said. “Warlocks can be powerful but for one to attack a whole coven of witches sounds a little strange. Has he spoken at all?”

“Besides bawling to the world that we must all die? Nothing,” Jeffrey asserted. “I thought that after two weeks of this, we might have learned something about him or his motives, but all he does is seethe and rage incoherently and invokes hordes of demons. It’d be funny if we weren’t legitimately in danger.”

Dante huffed, crossing his arms. “Does it even matter?  At this point, you guys just want him and his demons off your backs, right?”

“Obviously,” Ellie said. “So, will you take the job?”

Dante sighed, a little more for show than real dejection. “I guess I am, if I want my broker to stop nagging me,” he said with a smirk. Then he glanced at Tess who shrugged and nodded in agreement. “Y’got any idea how to find this warlock and his pet demon?”

“We… have a theory,” Jeffrey admitted. “So far he’s been pretty persistent with the stalking. Ellie and I are willing to use ourselves as bait to lure him out – he’s attacked individuals of our group before. Would that work?”

Dante whistled lowly. “That’s a risky plan, buddy.”

“It’s better than sitting around and waiting for him to wear us down to nothing!” Ellie snapped. “This guy has found every single safe haven we’ve established. If Jeffrey and me were to show ourselves at one of our past locations, I’m sure he’d show his damn face again. You can use him to get to the demon he’s made a pact with, can’t you?”

“Yes, in fact you can help me do it. Dante, I hate to say it, but she’s right,” Tess sighed. “We want to wrap this up sooner rather than later, don’t you think?”

Dante nodded, still keeping his arms folded on his chest. “Sure, I suppose that’s fair. Alright folks, you got yourselves an exterminator,” he said, holding up his hands halfway. “How soon can you get this set up?”

The two witches exchanged looks and seemed deeply relieved. “Thank goodness,” Jeffrey sighed. “Uh… I’m not sure. I want to say right away but truth be told, I’m barely holding it together. But the more we delay, the bigger the chance the warlock will find our current haven.”

“I can work with that,” Tess said with a shrug. “If we lure the warlock to put on an appearance, I can make sure you two stay out of the line of fire while we drag his patron out into the open.”

“I can help you but we’ll need to bind him quickly, he knows how to break seals and he isn’t afraid to do it big,” Ellie grumbled.

“Yeah, I thought he might, if he can take on a whole coven,” Tess said thoughtfully. “But I’ve dealt with worse and we’re three witches and a demon hunter to one warlock. Hey Dante, give us a second, we might actually be able to do this right now but we have to know what we’re doing.”

Dante nodded and allowed his back to rest against the nearest wall again. His gaze travelled from their clients to Tess as they quietly and quickly discussed a couple of spells and tactics. He didn’t pretend to pay attention, he knew that the best thing to do was just let the witches do their thing and do his thing. Once upon a time, in his misspent youth, he’d groan and protest at this delay. Now, though, he bowed to necessity; he hated dealing with demons that hid behind servants and minions and getting that out of the way was all right by him. Besides, he was somewhat fascinated at the little strategy meeting before him. Specifically, the way Tess just casually discussed with these two witches as though they all knew each other already.

That’s what it meant to find kin, he supposed.

Witches, for all the squabbling they did amongst themselves from his understanding, still held onto a sense of community. He sometimes envied that, a little. Sure, he had grown to have a circle of acquaintances, friends and partners himself, but it wasn’t really the same thing as covens. Watching Tess engage with these witches she didn’t know from Adam, so confidently and them accepting it without much questioning made him feel a little weird. Not in a bad sense, though. Maybe he… envied it a little bit?

This was normal for her. What her life ought to be like, part of a circle of people like her, who understood better what it was like to be a witch.

 _Witches don’t want to play demon hunter often, do they?_ He thought. _No… they wouldn’t. They can’t afford to put themselves or their families at risk. I don’t even know if Tess can afford to do this._  

He caught himself frowning at the thought. Fortunately, the short strategy meeting of the witches was over.  

“Alright, it will work,” Jeffrey said finally and stood up, looking a bit more perked up than before, then seemed to hesitate. “Oh… the matter of the up-front—“

Dante grimaced a bit. “Forget it, we’ll talk about that when your problem’s dealt with,” he said as he pushed off the wall. “You sure about being bait?”

“Absolutely. This must end now. One of our havens is fairly close by. We’re going to get his attention there,” Jeffrey nodded, his gaze curiously steely.

“When the warlock makes his appearance, I’m going to catch him in a seal and then force his master out into the open. He’ll be all yours,” Tess said with a smirk.

Dante raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re gonna be ok handling him yourself?”

She nodded nonchalantly. “Of course. Ellie and Jeffrey can help hold him there, but I’ve actually got experience fighting against other witches. I can handle him. I just don’t want to kill him before we have his master taken care of. There’s no saving this poor sod from the sound of it, so it’s for the best we take him out.”

Dante glanced at the other two. They seemed a bit… unsettled when she said she was experienced fighting witches, but not enough to think about backing out.

“Works for me. Let’s go get ‘im,” Dante said, gesturing to the door.

With that, they left the dive bar in silence, the siblings looking determined but their nervous glances all around betrayed their suppressed fears. They took a path to their nearest haven via the winding, dizzying back alleys of the city, some of which even Dante wasn’t entirely familiar with. Ellie, for all her guts, jumped at almost every random noise and Dante had to force away a smile; kid had spunk, he shouldn’t make fun of her, or Tess might chew him out later. He actually watched Tess place her hand on Ellie’s shoulder briefly and the younger witch seemed to find her composure shortly afterwards.

 _She’s really good at this,_ he thought. _Dealing with witches. But then again, she_ is _one._

The witches’ haven turned out to be one of those almost cliché pseudo-Victorian row houses that seem to pop up in every city if you look hard enough, with a bare red brick façade and faded, cracked window and door frames that were once white. It was shuttered up and seemed to be merely empty but Dante’s experienced eye caught the gouges in the bricks and pavement, from big demon claws, and the dark, oily stains splattered here and there that reeked of demonic blood and the scorched, faded outline of a magic circle on the pavement just before the steps… all surefire signs that demons and witches had battled here sometime within the past week.

 _Funny… when I lived at Tess’ house, the place was warded and guarded tighter than Fort Knox,_ he thought, eyeing the building and being reminded of the boarding house Tess’ grandmother ran years ago, where he had found refuge as a teenager. _Why does this look so… exposed?_

He glanced at Tess, the question eloquent in his look and she frowned, troubled.

“Did something happen to your wards? I can see some traces,” Tess asked the pair.

Jeffrey gulped. “The warlock. He uh… he ripped them apart,” he managed. “It’s what saved us the night he found this haven. By the time he and his demons could cross the threshold, we had escaped with our wounded.”

“Well!” Dante scoffed. “Sounds like this guy really means business.”

Sure, he laughed, but that just settled it in his mind that this was no hack spell-slinger with an axe to grind.

As soon as he finished that sentence, Dante felt a chill creep down his spine. The temperature seemed to drop abruptly, turning his breath to mist and the very air felt thick and cloying as though a sheet had been thrown over them all. Dante quietly reached for his guns and Tess for her knife.

The demons burst out of the house like corks on a shaken bottle of champagne. Windows and doors shattered, the beasts splintering the structure as they attacked. They were big, dark and sleek reptilians, seemingly made of gauzy, black slime that streamed off them, neverending. Their eyes were large, unnatural and glowing a sickly poisonous green. Dante frowned, these things forcibly reminded him of Assaults but there was something just… fundamentally wrong about them.

In the end, the plan went without a hitch. They took care of the demons, Dante rather lazily taking them on as per usual, while Tess and the siblings stood their ground in a circle of power, catching demons in seals and destroying them with fire until the warlock, a rather pathetic wreck of a man in heavily tattered clothes, made his appearance. He practically threw himself at the witches, yelling incoherently, mostly different variations of ‘die’. In fact, he was maybe _too_ incoherent and Dante caught himself taking a moment from dealing with the slimy lizards to check on Tess and the witches.

He was a little impressed; the three of them worked as one unit, belting out incantations together in a steady, almost musical rhythm, the siblings taking cues from Tess as she led them through the plan, squaring off with the warlock from the circle of power. The warlock screamed his spells in a hoarse, cracked voice and the clash of powers sent sparks that made the air boil around them. When the three of them successfully incapacitated the warlock, they stuck him in a seal and Tess led the other two in another joint incantation that caused the warlock to scream and bring his hands to his head.

The air crackled with power and Dante smiled stiffly. He could feel the witch magic being woven around the poor sod like a noose even from afar.

 _This is why I don’t like to tangle with witches,_ he thought. _Demons are usually pretty straightforward, they want to kill you and that’s that. But witches? Witches cheat._

Trapped in the circle, the man spewed foul curses and then his body seemed to contort and twist and almost bubble violently until he suddenly went rigidly straight with a sick crack of bones, eyes rolled completely back to expose nothing but the whites of his eyes. Then he seemed to tremble and then… ‘unzip’ with a tearing of flesh as a portal of sorts opened where his body split apart down the middle almost.

“Fuck, fuck—back off—Dante, you’re up!” Tess barked, yanking the two shaken siblings back, almost slinging them behind her as she brandished her knife in a reverse grip defensively, the bewitched blade seething quietly with power as the demonic forces spread from the portal.

Right on cue, a large demon screeched and squeezed itself through the portal, a horrific mass of vaguely bipedal flesh with several flailing arms and an oversized, caprine head with mismatched, twisting horns and a mouth that opened far too wide and was full of hooked teeth. Dante dove into the fray, catching the first swipe of the beast on the flat of Rebellion, deflecting the blow and getting right into the fight.

He was actually a little bit disappointed in the end. The beast proved to be a less than challenging foe compared to other demons he’d taken down, and worst of all, so singularly fixated on killing the three witches that it didn’t even spare him enough thought to engage him in a little repartee. He figured out that this thing was the impetus behind the warlock’s fixation – its loathing for the witches of this coven was so intense that it took over the very mind of the warlock that had struck a bargain with the demon. When the flailing thing died at last, the bloated body crumbling to dry, crackling ash along with the shell of the warlock, the siblings finally breathed easy.

Jeffrey all but collapsed into a seat on the steps of the safe house, elbows on his knees and rubbed his face tiredly. Ellie however, threw her arms around Tess, who accepted the enthusiastic embrace with a small start of surprise, and excitedly whooped in victory.

Dante watched the young witch revel in the sweet relief of success with an amused smirk as he secured his sword on his back.

“What, don’t I get a hug?” he scoffed and Tess grimaced at him then smirked as she patted Ellie’s back.

“Thank you… so much,” Jeffrey said awkwardly. “I’m not sure why that demon was so fixated on us but it’s… it’s over now.”

“Sounds like your grandpappy or something tapped it on the nose and sealed it away,” Dante chuckled, leaning on the side of the staircase’s half wall. “Wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but it sure held a grudge.”

Jeffrey seemed surprised. “Really? Huh… I suppose dad will know more about that, whether it was our family or another…” he said and rubbed the back of his neck. “S-so now should we uh, leave? This was quite the commotion.”

“Probably for the best, the building’s totaled,” Tess sighed as Ellie finally let her go, beaming. “You should try and handle this through a proxy or something, if you’re still concerned with secrecy.”

Quite wisely, the lot of them made themselves scarce as the sounds of approaching emergency services grew in volume in the distance. They retreated back to the dive bar for the debrief and found Morrison waiting for them there, enjoying a scotch and a cigar in the back room they had met in. They took the show to the back room again and Dante parked himself in a chair and put his feet up to half-listen to Morrison and Jeffrey work out their payment while Ellie chattered to Tess on the other end of the room. He wanted to pretend to be dozing off to avoid having to say much to them, but he couldn’t help paying more attention to the two witches.

“That was amazing. I’ve never seen seals and wards like that,” the young woman said excitedly, but still in a low tone. “If we knew how to do those things, we could’ve taken care of this monster ourselves.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Tess said with a gentle head shake. “Your coven’s young and made up of survivors and people who’ve left other covens; it’s hard to get this good without having a foundation of knowledge from older generations. You work with what you’ve got.”

“You’re incredibly skilled though, Celia,” Ellie said pointedly. “You’ve left your coven too, haven’t you?”

Tess hesitated a little. “Yes. I had to. There were differences that couldn’t be reconciled,” she said and Dante watched her start twirling a lock of hair around her fingers – dammit, she was giving herself away there, she always did that when she was nervous.

“Are you a solitary witch then?” Ellie said, her interest renewed. “Our coven would definitely accept you, if you want to join us. The coven isn’t formal so there aren’t any overbearing principals. We’d get you all caught up on the local wiccan affairs and then some. If you taught us, we would have no fear from demons.”

Dante felt himself jolt a bit when he heard that and he wasn’t even sure why. He felt… like his stomach had dropped from a few hundred feet, for no good reason. He kept his eyes half-lidded as though dozing but he kept his gaze glued to Tess. She hesitated again, for longer this time.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The rest of your circle might not be really on board with me. I’m not particularly well-liked in the bigger witch circles.”

“Ah, because of your heritage?” Ellie countered and Tess froze while Dante’s eyes snapped open. “Oh sorry, sorry, don’t panic—“ the young witch said hurriedly, seeing Tess’ alarm. “When the lizard demons were coming for us you beat some of them back with fire – it’s fey-powered, isn’t it? Dad talked about a witch that married a changeling years ago. Were they your family?”

Tess did not answer immediately and Dante almost stood up to cut into that. _Damn kid knows her stuff,_ he thought.

“Yeah, they were,” Tess just said.

Ellie squirmed awkwardly. “I’m sorry if it was supposed to be a secret. Dad talked about it a lot because he thought the reaction of the covens then was really bad. It’s why he left and began this coven here.”

“Huh, that’s… actually really good to know,” Tess said and blurted a little chuckle.

Dante watched her shoulders relax visibly and she stopped fiddling with her hair. “Tell you what,” she then said to Ellie. “I’ll think about it. But don’t make any hasty decisions without letting the rest of your coven know.”

Morrison stood up to take his leave. “Well that’s the payment all sorted out,” he said with a small smile. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he added, shaking Jeffrey’s hand.

“Thanks again for your help,” the witch said.

Dante grimaced a little – he’d missed the entire exchange, focused as he had been on Tess and Ellie’s. “You sure you got my cut tallied up right?” he said to cover his ass, taking his feet off the table and standing up.

“Of course I did, think I’m some kinda amateur?” Morrison scoffed. “I know what you’re like when you don’t get your due.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Dante said, rolling his shoulders and neck and picking up the guitar case again.

“And I’ve included _your_ cut, Spitfire,” Morrison added, glancing at Tess with a tip of his hat.

Tess nodded with a grin. “Thanks Morrison, you’re the man.”

“Damn right, I am,” the older gentleman chuckled indulgently as he walked out.  

“Don’t butter him up, he’s never gonna let that go,” Dante groused, shooting a rather offended glance at Morrison as he left. Since when did Morrison nickname Tess?!

“Hey, you comin’?” he then said to her, hesitating at the door.

Tess was still sitting with Ellie and giggling about something he’d missed while Jeffrey hovered over them with a smirk. Tess suddenly looked up at him with a surprised grin and shrugged. “Uh, go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you later. I wanna talk with these guys a bit.”

Dante wasn’t sure why that felt like a gut punch and he frowned at her momentarily. She just stared back, still smiling.

“Really?” he scoffed. “Gonna blow me off?”

She chuckled. “Oh come on, it’s not like we have some pressing business. Just go on ahead, I’ll be by your office later to pick up my share if that’s okay.”

“Fine, catch you later, I guess,” he said with a shrug and waved absently as he walked out.

Inwardly though he was a bit… offended? He almost felt like she’d blown him off so she could talk witchy things with the other two. It would’ve been nice to get a drink or two with her after the job, but…

 _She hasn’t been in touch with her own kind in a while – at least, not with witches who didn’t think she was evil incarnate, anyway,_ he told himself as he walked back to his office. _What am I gonna do, fault her for wanting to have a normal conversation with one of her kin?_

Maybe what bothered him was that he was bored. The job hadn’t really been exciting enough to get his blood up, as it were and yet he wasn’t in a mood to actually kick back and nap the day away. There wasn’t anything else to do and getting a drink by himself didn’t exactly sit well with him. Lady and Trish were also away so that left him rather lonesome. And of course he’d never call _Nero_ for a bit of a social call – at least not for this. Kid was still too high strung.

 _This is absurd, am I getting upset because Tess isn’t hanging out with me?_ He told himself and shook his head at himself.

He threw himself on his couch as soon as he got back to the office, crossing his legs as he stretched out and then linked his fingers behind his head to rest and possibly nap until Tess decided to show up for her cut.

“Are you sulking?” a familiar voice said after a soft susurration of tricking sand, sounding amused.

Dante sighed and glanced to the side, to see a gray cat with one green eye, the other eye shut by an old scar, perched on the corner of his desk next to the phone. It flicked its fluffy tail as soon as he made eye contact with it and the cat slow-blinked its single eye in greeting.

“What would I have to sulk about, old man?” Dante fired back. “What are you doing here anyway, Roy?”

The cat flicked an ear, staring at him. “I assumed Tess would be here after your little joined operation,” Roy replied in his crisp British accent.

Dante clicked his tongue at the cat. “You’re her familiar; shouldn’t you know where she is?”

“She’s a big girl, Dante, I won’t babysit her,” the cat dismissed him. “I take your job with this coven went well?”

Dante shrugged. “She’s talking with the witches we did the job for. Sound like half-decent people,” he said. “Even sounded like they wanted Tess to join their coven or whatever.”

“Did they now,” Roy said dryly and flicked his tail. “You sound strangely annoyed about that.”

Dante felt his eyebrows twitch a little bit at Roy’s accusation. “Sounds like _you_ need to get your ears checked, Fuzzball.”

“You’re here without her, though,” the cat chuckled. “I take she ditched you to hang out with the witches?”

Dante suppressed a small growl at the familiar’s usual acuity. “And why would I be upset over that?”

The cat sounded amused. “You might have wanted her to hang out with you instead.”

The hunter sighed quietly, trying to make it sound theatrical and therefore fake. “Like you said old man, she’s a big girl. She can hang out with whoever she wants.”

“Fair enough,” said Roy, curling up on the edge of his desk and staring at him with his luminous eye. “So you wouldn’t mind at all if Tess _did_ join this coven?”

Dante flinched and hated the fact that he did. He hadn’t actually considered the thought that Tess might agree to join this coven’s ranks. Since Amaro, so far he’d sort of assumed she’d had her fill of coven intrigue and that the Devil May Cry office… kind of was her new stomping grounds, almost. Sure, it wasn’t the same as being surrounded by her own kind but it must have counted for something, it wasn’t just constant threat of being surrounded by just one of the very predators of witches. Dante schooled his expression back into a passive, disinterested one.

“S’her call if she does. Probably do her good, won’t it? You guys always said witches tend to stick together,” he said, trying to ensure he sounded as poker-faced as he hoped he looked.

“Even if that means she won’t have much time for demon hunting?” Roy said pointedly. “Or you?”

Dante felt all of his blood drain to his feet unexpectedly, and his eyebrows actually bowed up as his eyes snapped open fully. “That so?” he managed.

The cat seemed oblivious to his reaction. “Well, I imagine she’ll have to spend quite a bit of time integrating with this coven and sharing her knowledge once she’s accepted,” he said casually. “Gaining their trust will take a while – almost a full time job, really. And don’t count on being invited.”

Dante just exhaled impatiently. “Sounds rough.”

The cat carried on. “But she’ll probably finally meet with some of her peers. Perhaps she’ll take a _special interest_ in one or other of them.”

That finally made Dante sit up and plant his feet on the floor, to glare at the cat. “Did you come here just to mess with me, old man?” he snapped.

Roy half-closed his eye at the hunter and Dante _swore_ the cat was smiling. “What makes you think that?”

Dante leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and pointed an accusatory forefinger at the familiar still perched like a loaf on his desk. “Because you’re just trying to rile me up about Tess deciding she’d rather traipse around with a bunch of suburban witches than—“

“—than spend her time dealing with you? Because there’s times when I think she does,” the cat interrupted. “Since Amaro, you two have been a comedy. First it was the awkward phase of trying to reacquaint yourselves with each other after 20 years. Now it’s one minute of sharing absurd jokes and ten minutes of bickering. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you both _actively enjoy that_.”

Dante opened his mouth to protest but then shut it and allowed his hand to drop onto his knees as he glared at the cat. “…Are you accusing me of _being_ _jealous_ , Fuzzball? Of a buncha witches?”

“Are you?” countered the cat, flicking an ear.

“I’m…I’m not,” Dante said quickly, irritated. “Look, you’ve been back for four months. We’ve been doing some jobs, Tess found a place to stay and even a part-time job—s’all good.”

“Yes, and you’ve been bothering her for more than just jobs lately,” the cat countered. “Will you really not mind if she has no time for that?”

“Not at—“

Roy stood up. “Dante. Do be honest.”

They stared at each other for a long moment and Dante suddenly sprang up from the couch and made to snatch Roy by the scruff of the neck. The cat however jumped back, practically out of his fingers and off to the other side of the desk as Dante braced both hands on one end, glaring at the cat on the other.

“You’re being patently ridiculous, it’s a simple question,” Roy said in an almost infuriatingly kind tone.

“Fine,” Dante said with grit teeth. “Yes, I’ll mind.”

“There we go, that wasn’t so bad,” Roy said pleasantly, sitting back down. “Have you told _her_ that?”

Dante winced. “No.”

“And why is that, pray tell?”

“…’Cuz it’s stupid,” Dante muttered and rubbed the back of his neck, looking away. “Look, maybe it’s a bad idea to let ‘er hang out with those witches, we don’t know them—“

“ _’We’_ , Dante?” Roy chuckled. “You only just said that what Tess does in regards to the coven is her prerogative.”

“Okay, fine, I don’t want her fucking off with them all the time after I spent twenty years without even knowing if she’s alive or not!” Dante blurted, irritated. “I keep dragging her off to jobs with me because she’s good company—even Lady and Trish sometimes grab her and go gadding off for whatever.”

Roy’s ear flicked again and Dante was once more under the impression the cat was smiling. “It’s not me you have to convince, Dante. If you’d prefer she spend more time with you, why not tell her?”

He had no good answer. He just grumbled and hung his head, braced his hands on the desk again and drummed his fingers against the wood. “’Cuz she’ll think I’m just being a dork,” he mumbled.

The cat scoffed. “So tell me, why do you think Tess has been happy to follow you on these little escapades, even when it has nothing to do with her particular skills? She doesn’t _need_ to hunt demons, nor do you really _need_ her there most of the time.”

Dante felt cornered but he knew that if he backed out of the discussion now, Roy’d _win._ And he couldn’t stand that. “Because I’m great company?”

Roy cackled. “Something like that. I’ve noticed something silly you like to do. You constantly tell her _‘you love me’_ , don’t you? I seem to recall this started when you two were twerps.”

Dante was startled to hear Roy say that. _Shit, have people noticed?_   he told himself. _We started that joke when we were teenagers, for fuck’s sake. I kinda forgot we used to say that until she came back and I just started it up again without realizing._

“So what? It’s an old joke,” Dante said.

“Don’t you think the joke’s gone on long enough?” Roy said flatly.

Dante blinked. “What?”

“Dante, you keep yakking on about that, but haven’t you realized that _in fact, she does?_ ” Roy said with a fed up sigh.   

Dante froze, just staring at the cat with an expression that definitely smacked of ‘deer in headlights’ as the information rolled around his head like a grenade. Not just what Roy said – but the realization that he _already knew_. Or at least, suspected—hoped maybe? He rarely dared to broach that topic even with himself because whenever he did, his entire being would flinch from it like a cat flinching from water. He really, _really_ wanted to have some eloquent quip to counter with, some dose of bravado that he could call upon to dismiss this creeping anxiety he felt coming on, something to stave off the desire to deflect this entire thing and pretend this conversation never happened.

But something in the back of his mind kept him planted there, fixated on Roy’s implication and clutching the tiny shred of hope it gleamed from the statement.

“W-What?” he just croaked.

“You silly cabbage,” Roy sighed. “Please tell me you aren’t as thick as that. Surely, you have to know by now that she accepts that little jest because it’s true. She does, in fact, love you, you idiot. That’s why she acts the way she does when you make that joke.”

“I don’t—“ he blurted and then hung his head before he stood straight and aimlessly wandered a few steps to the side, rubbing his face. He couldn’t very well say ‘I don’t joke about it’ because he did. He joked about that _a lot_. More than he should’ve, maybe. Because he was way too scared of asking for a confirmation.

He whipped around, staring down the cat. “So why hasn’t she said anything?!” he protested. “Tess never minces her words, if she loved—if she… she _loves_ me then why hasn’t she said anything?!”

_She loves me._

Gosh that was a hard thing to repeat, for some reason. He almost refused to believe it but for all his impishness, Roy was not a liar. Not about these things. Dante severely doubted whether Tess would’ve outright _said_ it to Roy, but the familiar knew her best of anyone. He knew how she ticked and he knew what went on in that head of hers when nobody could figure it out. And now the full implications of this were making Dante’s well-founded wit and eloquence beat a hasty retreat through a window.

“Because you joke about it, Dante,” Roy sighed. “You joked about it too much and it’s made her think twice about it.”

“ _Why_?!” he almost squeaked.

Roy stood up and his tail fluffed up as his ears went back. “She’s worried you’ll make light of it! And I think I agree! You won’t even do it maliciously, you imbecile; you’d do it because it’s how you deal with everything thrown at you, good or bad; it’s how you cope!”

Dante just back stepped to the couch and dropped heavily on it like a sack of dirt. “Seriously?” he groused. “That’s what you both think?”

“We don’t _like_ it, especially not Tess!” Roy hissed. “But you’re _already_ freaking out about this and you’re hearing it from me. Imagine if she’d told you – and I wish she had, the little idiot! I hate having to spell it out to you but you’ve both given me a headache for months now!”

Dante looked up at the cat. “Wha…?”

Now Roy’s fur was really fluffed up. “I’ve been worried about you two,” he growled. “You’ve managed to get over the hurdles of twenty years of loss and the complications of getting to know each other again but you hit a brick wall about everything else!”

Roy hopped across the desk to glare at Dante from the edge nearest to the couch, his tail twitching in irritation. “It’s been painful to watch you two dance around the issue like a pair of babies! Even your partners are in on it and they’ve not exactly been subtle about it.”

Dante knew he was going pale. His partners –

 _Did Lady and Trish know before I did!?_ He tried to reason with himself in vain. _No. No way—but ugh, they **would.** They’ve always been snickering about it and I thought they were just giving me shit--_

“Hang on,” Dante managed. “Does Tess… does Tess know that uh… that they know?”

He cursed himself quietly. He really wanted to ask something else but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Roy jumped off the desk and padded right up to him, glaring up at him from the floor, ears still flat. “If you’re asking me whether she knows _you love her,_ then you’re really an idiot. I’m not the one you should be asking!”

Then the cat whipped around. “And I’m done with this matter. I said all I had to say. Do yourself a favor and think about this yourself, before you do anything dumb. And I mean it when I said she’d find interesting peers in a coven. Tess is quite a catch for any witch.”

“Hey—“ Dante protested but Roy had already reached his front door and slunk out after turning into a thin whirl of sand that blew out through the gap between his door and the floor.

“Goddammit…” Dante muttered, left alone with a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings he really didn’t want to deal with right now—

 _Except, that’s just what Roy chewed me out about,_ he thought. _He’s right, dammit. I’m on the verge of cracking a shitty joke and pretending this didn’t just happen._

He stood up and paced to the jukebox for nothing, then back towards the sofa, then halfway across his office before doubling back, in a nervous, irritable pace and going between shoving his hands in his pockets or linking them behind his neck or cracking his knuckles absently. He just absolutely had no idea what to do with his hands or his legs or… or all of him, really. He scratched his stubble absently. He almost wished he was the runner type, to go out and break into a hard run for a few hours and sort his thoughts while his body did something with itself.

 _Tess loves me,_ he repeated to himself as though it were bizarre. _Why, for crying out loud?_ he thought briefly before his hand actually came up to wave that stupid question away. _Why the hell not?! I’m terrific! She’s always laughing at my jokes and playing along and I’ve seen her ogle me – come on, she’s totally ogling me, I’m a good-looking guy—and—and she… she picks fights with me when I’m being stupid. Yeah, okay, I can be pretty pig-headed and she knows it. She won’t let me get away with my bullshit. Goddammit, Twig._

He was afraid he’d wear a groove into his floor so he threw himself on the couch again, stretching out and trying to get comfortable. He suppressed all of the idiotic jokes that came bubbling up again and resolved that when Tess came for her cut of the job, he’d have a serious, mature conversation with her about it. He could do that. He glanced at the old, musty clock he kept on the far wall.

_She shouldn’t be long._

Except, she was. In fact, it was very near ten in the evening when she finally showed up and in the meantime Dante had managed to squirm himself off his couch, paced up and down the stairs to his bedroom several times for no good reason as he kept changing his mind about taking a nap just before he reached the door and managed to piss off a potential customer by snapping at them when they called him on the phone. He was slouching in his chair trying to focus on reading a magazine for maybe the fifth time when he heard his door creak open after a vague knock.

“Wow, you’re up,” Tess said, walking in as the door was unlocked. “You haven’t even turned off the neon sign, isn’t it past your official closing time?” she said with a smirk.

Dante blinked, then tossed the magazine down and sat up. “The heck have you been?” he said, standing up.

She tilted her head, hands in her coat pockets. “I ended up going for a drink with the siblings and then met their father. The poor guy was still pretty messed up but he was happy to have a chat. Would you believe it, he’d met my mother briefly.”

Dante’s heart sank a little and oddly that made him a bit angry too. “So you went for drinks with a pair of witches you don’t even know and it took ya all evening? I thought you were supposed to be lying low after Amaro. Do they know you basically brought an old-ass coven down?”

Tess scowled at him. “Don’t be stupid, of course not. I wouldn’t spill that to people I just met today,” she snapped. “But not every witch is out to murder me for Amaro or even what my father did. The coven master even told me he _supported_ the whole situation with my dad because of the circumstances, that’s why he ditched his former coven. Jeez.”

Dante fought off a wince. She was getting a little angry now – well she was right, he’d just said something pretty damn hurtful. “You could’ve told me you would be so long, I told you I’d wait,” he countered.

She sighed, allowing her shoulders to drop in exasperation and then chuckled. “Wow, listen to yourself. I’m sorry you were waiting but we didn’t exactly have an appointment. I know you don’t sleep before midnight, anyway.”

He grunted a little, folding his arms. “Still… you could’ve been in trouble.”

“And you were so worried you were reading a magazine,” she said with a chuckle. “I can handle a pair of green witches, the rest of their coven was really out of action. Look. You have a point, I should’ve called to tell you not to wait but I got carried away. I haven’t talked with other witches in a while.”

“Yeah, I know…” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. ”I’m just saying, it was kinda fishy.”

He watched her eyebrow arch up. “Really? How so?”

Dante wanted to deflect but her challenging gaze prevented him from doing so, that’d be running away! “They’re just too eager to get you into their ranks, it’s weird,” he muttered.

She folded her arms on her chest and tilted her head. Dante avoided her gaze; it only just occurred to him to remember that she could see auras. She could see his aura. Which undoubtedly gave away a lot more than he wanted, dammit.

“I admit they are, but I think it’s because they want to have somebody with experience fighting demons and such, not just running away,” she said quietly, then paused for a moment. “Hey.  Are you… bothered by that?”

“No,” he said quickly. “It’s just… I dunno, it’s fishy. You don’t know these people.”

“I didn’t know you either, once,” she countered and he flinched. “Remember, before I left we only knew each other for like, six months.”

“That’s not the same though,” he blurted. “These guys sound like amateurs and it bugs me they’re so eager to recruit someone as badass as you because they can’t figure out how to deal with one warlock and a few goddamn demons.”

Tess blinked at him, visibly taken aback from his comments.

“Did you think about it? Joining up with them,” Dante said. “Seriously.”

She frowned. “I don’t see how it’s your concern.” 

Dante threw his arms up. “Course it is! When we were in Amaro I got the impression witch covens were a big deal and here I am, cleaning up after one small time one that’s about to gank my partner from right under my nose! Of course I’m not okay with that.”

Tess scoffed in disbelief. “Oh my shit, really?” she said with a wan smile. “You’re freaking out about _that?”_

“I am _not_ freaking out,” he snapped, a vain attempt to salvage the situation.

“Dante come on, stop fibbing, you know I can tell when you are,” she snapped back. “Where’s this shit coming from? You never really care about these things.”

Dante breathed out through his nose irritably. “I’m worried about you,” he growled.

“I appreciate it, but you’re acting like you’re the father of an upstart teenager,” he said. “Why?”

Dante felt his eye twitch. Why? Because… because he didn’t want her being too far away again. He didn’t want her being with others who might keep her away like the Amaro coven had; without her knowing why it irritated him. He felt… better, calmer and more at ease when he knew she was there, in his life, even in a small way. 

“Well?” she demanded, reeling from his outburst. “What is your problem?”

Now, by tradition, Hollywood has set high standards both for kisses and love declarations. Protocol demands pomp and florid language, theatrics and fireworks. It demands dips and dramatic swells of triumphant music at just the right time. It demands the kind of show he always fancied putting for foes, the bravado he reserved for combat.

But in that moment, all that felt so... phony.

He closed the distance between them in two big strides, hands rising to cup either side of her face.

“I love you. That's my problem,” he said.

Then his lips crashed into hers and the full force and the magnitude of his own stupidity about putting this off really hit home. The last time he had kissed her, they were teenagers and he was about to lose her, and he had not said anything then. A damn kiss twenty years in the making, give or take. He had tried so hard not to think about how long he had wanted this kiss for. His whole body snapped alive at the contact, nerves firing off the kind of adolescent giddiness and enthusiasm he thought himself too jaded and old to muster. Her lips were warm and sweet – some kind of lip balm added a sugary taste to her and it made him smile.

But then he realized what he was doing and although he did not even want to contemplate aborting this, he had a momentary terror that she might push him away. But instead, her hands grabbed onto his coat and kept him there, her body leaned into his and she responded to the kiss. She actually tugged at his lip momentarily before taking the plunge again and her lips parted for him.

All of the cliché descriptions of what love does to you laughed in his face – yes, he absolutely felt he could walk on air; yes, he felt butterflies in his stomach; yes, he even felt like this one blunt kiss was somehow completing him in a vague and slightly frightening way.

Years spent dismissing the idea that he could ever be the subject of such sentiments now proved the joke was truly on him.

He loved Tess and he was happy he'd kept his declaration short and to the point or risk falling prey to his perpetual habit of spouting a whole lot of bullshit.

He let his forehead rest on hers and they just stared at each other in silence after the kiss for a good minute or so.

“That’s quite a problem you have,” she blurted and Dante started chuckling, which she joined.

“I know, and it’s your fault,” he said gently.

“Hey, you’re the one jealous of a bunch of people because I hung out with them,” she giggled.

“You’re gonna call me a big baby, aren’t you,” he sighed irritably.

“No,” she said, cupping his face with her hands. “You’re a dummy though. Just because I might consider helping these people out doesn’t mean I’m going to devote my time to them exclusively. I like this demon hunting gig. Even when you winge about it just to get me to come along on a job that bores you because you want my company.”

“Is that right?” he scoffed. “Guess I’m gonna need to find another way to keep you around besides crummy jobs.”

“That would be nice,” she said. Then her grin turned into an impish smirk. “You got anything to say about that?”

He smiled and kissed her forehead suddenly. “Yeah. What I always told ya, Twig. You love me.”

Sure, he may have gotten an earful about it from Roy but he was never going to drop that joke. Mostly because it wasn’t a joke anymore; or maybe it was, just their own private little joke. And that was fine. He rested his lips on her forehead as her arms slipped around his waist.

“Hey, did you have a lot of drinks with the witches?” he said suddenly.

She looked up. “No, just a beer—why?”

“I know it’s late, but let’s get a drink and a pizza, I’m starving,” he said, grabbing her hand.

“Is this a date?”

“Damn right it is,” he grinned.

“It’s not gonna end with us getting jumped by demons again, is it? That’s how it always ended up, back in the day,” Tess groused.

“I sure hope not, it’s been overdue twenty years,” Dante sighed, but he picked up his sword in the guitar case all the same. “Let’s see if my luck changes a bit, shall we?”

“Don’t bank on me making it better, you know what my life’s like,” she snorted.

Dante paused just long enough to turn off all the lights in the office and flicked off the neon sign just before he closed and locked the door behind him.  

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank all of my readers so far for sticking it out with me! This series is due an overhaul (you can thank my Discord server and DMC5 for germinating way too many ideas in my head and my everlasting perfectionism to churn out good writing) but until then I hope you continue to enjoy reading my fanon! See you in the next story.


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